Asian Le Mans Series’ long-awaited return to Malaysia and the Petronas Sepang International Circuit was won by the 99 Racing Oreca LMP2 of Ahmad Al Harthy, Nikita Mazepin, and Louis Deletraz.
The #99 Oreca 07 took the win in Race 1 of the 4 Hours of Sepang double-header after Deletraz grabbed the lead from the #22 Proton Competition Oreca on a Safety Car restart with 37 minutes to go. But it was still far from “job done” – as scattered rain showers turned into monsoon conditions in the last half-hour of the race!
Both Deletraz and Mathieu Vaxiviere changed over to wet tyres to finish the race as the rain fell even harder. Vaxiviere was able to home in on Deletraz but spun off the track in his pursuit, losing touch with the leader. This was only milliseconds after Deletraz got away with a big slide.
Race control determined that the rain and standing water on track was too intense for the race to continue under full green conditions, and a Safety Car was deployed with 15 minutes left to effectively end the race – and a Red Flag with ten minutes left brought all the action to an end.
The AF Corse #83 of Vaxiviere, Francois Perrodo, and Alessio Rovera would hang on to second place, followed by the DKR Engineering #3 of Alexander Mattschull, Tom Dillmann, and Laurents Horr.
Proton Competition’s two cars finished fourth and fifth, led by the #55 (PJ Hyett/Paul-Loup Chatin/Harry Tincknell) ahead of the #22 (Giorgio Roda/Julien Andlauer/Rene Binder).
The #22 initially took the lead with an hour and 50 minutes left after the leading Team Duquiene #30 spun off the road when Andlauer and Carl Wattana Bennett made contact at turn 11, and sent the Thai-American driver spinning off into the gravel. Until that point, Bennett was keeping then-leader Mazepin honest after taking the baton from Falb, who himself drove to the lead after starting second behind polesitter Michael Dinan in the TF Sport #90.
Dinan, Salih Yoluc, and Charlie Eastwood finished a tough seventh place after contact with an LMP3 car forced them into the pits for repairs.
In LMP3, the #17 COOL Racing Ligier JS P320 of Alexander Bukhantsov, James Winslow, and Daniel Frost charged to the victory. Frost took the lead with just over an hour left and never looked back.
The #2 CD Sport Ligier (Michael Jensen/Nick Adcock/Fabien Lavergne) would come home second in class, followed by the #26 Bretton Racing Ligier (Dan Skocdopole/Julien Gerbi/Mihnea Stefan) in third.
Josh Burdon’s crash at turn one in the #65 Viper Niza Racing Ligier with 54 minutes to go brought out the second Safety Car, which set up the final lead change in LMP2.
It also looked to have ruined the race for GT leaders Sainteloc Racing – but the #42 Audi R8 LMS GT3 EVO II of Alban Varutti, Gilles Magnus, and Christopher Haase was able to get back to the lead before the rain came down and take a well-deserved class win.
Varutti’s pace in the opening stint was overwhelming as he broke out a lead of nearly a minute over the rest of his Bronze-rated peers at one point.
They led an all-Audi GT podium with the #66 Attempto Racing Audi (Andrey Mukovoz/Alex Aka/Dylan Pereira) hanging onto second place; the #43 Sainteloc Audi (Bihuang Zhou/Paul Evrard/Dennis Marschall) would complete the podium in third.
The GT race began with a collision between the #33 Herberth Motorsport Porsche 911 GT3 R of Antares Au, and the #37 Craft-Bamboo Racing Mercedes-AMG GT3 of Anthony Liu who started the race second, spun, then drove head-on into the Porsche according to Au.
The Mercedes retired after just one lap, but will have a mulligan in Race 2 tomorrow, which they’ll start from pole position – while the Herberth Porsche retired after a puncture with less than 90 minutes left.
Hour one was also punctuated by Kei Cozzolino’s stirring drive from 23rd to second in class in just 15 minutes, but it was undone when the #82 AF Corse Ferrari couldn’t get out of first gear after an FCY restart, the symptom of an electrical issue which took the car out of contention.
The best of the non-four-ringed runners was the #7 Al Manar Racing by GetSpeed Mercedes (Martin Konrad/Al Faisal Al Zubair/Fabian Schiller) in fourth, followed by the #91 Pure Rxcing Porsche (Alex Malykhin/Joel Sturm/Klaus Bachler), and the #19 Leipert Motorsport Lamborghini Huracan GT3 EVO2 (Gabriel Rindone/Brendon Leitch/Marco Mapelli) – despite Mapelli aquaplaning off at the last corner under the Safety Car.
In eighth place was the #88 Triple Eight JMR Mercedes (Prince Jefri Ibrahim/Broc Feeney/Luca Stolz), recovering after multiple self-inflicted penalties for the Prince for avoidable contact with other runners.
Race 2 of the 4 Hours of Sepang begins at the same time tomorrow, 14:00 MYT (local time).
